Thursday, November 10, 2005

Ne Waza instead of calisthenics

Start your every class with some light ne waza instead of calisthenics and running.

I got this simple tip from the man who trained under Anton Geesink. He would start the class with ne waza because that way their warm up period would be shorter and they would got to learn much more Judo and ne waza.

They would start with very light pin escapes, sweeps and transitions to prevent injuries.
Than as they warm up they would progress into more serious groundwork.

We started doing this now all the time and the results are great.

- we get to do 25%(30 min) more pure judo per 2 hr class.

- we get to do much more ne waza because as you start your class with ne waza it is hard to stop. It is way more fun than calisthenics.

There is simply more time to add ne waza drills to our regular practice. Even if we want to do lots of standup judo this gives us more time without sacrificing too much of ne waza, because these style of warming up works quicker than calisthenics. It takes only 5-10 min of ne waza to get the heart rate where it needs to be for randori practice. You can always add some streching as needed.